by James Steel
Three miles north, high up on the edge of the lake, Zacheus presses the electric firing switch and the forty 122mm rocket tubes fire off in twenty seconds. Each launches with a screaming flash of white propellant and howls away over the cloudy lake.
The men of Echo Company have no chance. The BM-21 is one of the heaviest weapons in the land-based arsenal and is designed for exactly this sort of artillery ambush over a wide area. The men are grouped together and protected only by a piece of canvas.
The shells airburst over them and the heavy detonations create a dreadful fast beat for twenty seconds. Blast waves repeatedly sweep the area and razor-sharp steel splinters fizz across it. The men are stunned and then pulped and cut to pieces.
The explosions hit the helicopters and knock them on their sides, their rotors spin away and they explode. Huge bursts of flame erupt across the flight line as they all go up and then a shell hits the main fuel tanks and an enormous fireball erupts, knocking out the heavy earth embankments and sweeping a blast wave up towards the main encampment.
In the ops room Yamba looks up in alarm from staring at the satellite shots of Bahomba as the first explosion hits. He glances at Mordechai and they are frozen in shock. Then the fuel depot goes and the walls of the tent flap violently in the blast and loose paper blows about them. It sounds like the thunderclap heralding the day of judgement.
Yamba snaps out of his shock. ‘Major Eisenberg, stay here! Signaller, with me!’ He darts out of the tent and sees a huge dirty black cloud roiling up into the rain over the flight line.
Arkady and others run out and they stand and stare in shock.
‘Come on!’ Yamba leads them at a pelting run through the camp. Men are standing outside their tents staring at the chaos but snap to it and run after them.
Yamba gets to the flight line and looks at it. What was a well laid out, orderly airport is now a scene of utter carnage, covered in eleven blazing wrecks, with the bodies of over a hundred men smashed and scattered around the edge of them, severed arms, legs and heads strewn about. The whole scene is covered in drifting sheets of rain and lit a lurid orange by a hundred-foot-high wall of flame from the fuel depot.
They have arrived in hell.
Patricia Johnson, John Ciacola and Major Reilly all stare at the mob of five hundred angry drunk men running at them along the road from the farm.
They can hear them shouting and yelling.
Reilly snaps into action. ‘OK, Madame Secretary, can you take shelter in your block? I will set up a cordon and get the choppers in a-sap.’
Johnson nods and turns and walks as fast as she can back to her prefab hut with Ciacola.
‘Sergeant Moretti! Get that gate barred and I want five guys behind it as a show of force. Break out the spare ammo and get the other guys up on the roofs there.’ He turns and points back to the line of prefabs nearest the gate in the razor-wire fence.
‘Get the press people inside the huts as well, I want them outta the way, this could get ugly!’ Moretti and the other fourteen Delta Force soldiers jump to it.
‘Juarez!’ Reilly calls his signaller over with his radio backpack. ‘Get on the First Regiment command net.’
Once he’s on the frequency, Reilly barks into the handset, ‘Loyola, this is Bronze Six, Loyola, this is Bronze Six, do you copy?’
Yamba’s signaller is standing next to him looking at the devastation in front of them. He taps him on the shoulder and numbly hands him the handset.
Yamba forces himself to look away and concentrate. ‘Bronze Six, this is Loyola, go ahead.’
‘Loyola, we have a riot situation developing here at our camp, request immediate helicopter extraction!’
Yamba pauses for a moment and presses the receiver against his forehead trying to think what to say. He can’t believe the words he has to use.
‘Bronze Six, we cannot assist you, we have suffered an artillery ambush on our flight line and all our helicopters have been destroyed plus over a hundred men dead. Bronze Six, I am sorry.’
Yamba feels the professional failure deeply.
‘Oh shit!’ He hears the tension edging Reilly’s voice. He knows it takes most of a day to drive up through the mountain roads to get to Mukungu from the base.
Yamba tries to think of what he can do to help. ‘Bronze Six, we will keep the drone over you and the farm and feed any intelligence to you.’
Reilly forces himself not to say anything offensive. ‘Loyola, we will advise you of our situation and seek alternative help. Out.’
What help?
Chapter Fifty-Three
Alex leans over the shoulder of the door gunner and looks out of the side door of the Mi-17.
‘Circle the village, I want to see the area,’ he shouts into the mike on his headset.
The pilot banks and he sees a collection of round thatched huts and a few tin-roofed shacks crammed into the bottom of the valley with forested sides. Vegetable plots and meadows spread out on either side of the village up and down the flat land in the valley, and at the far end of the fields downstream is a football pitch surrounded by trees.
Half a mile away up a side valley to the west is another area of flat meadows divided from the village by bush. Otherwise the terrain is just rugged hills and trees.
He checks his watch; it’s just after five o’clock. They’ve got under an hour until it gets dark to get in and find Sophie. It’s been thirty minutes since he spoke to her on the satellite phone and he can’t use it in the noisy cargo bay, so he has no idea what has happened to her in that time. The weather is closing in as well, with low rain clouds pouring out from Lake Kivu.
Every minute of the journey has been agony for him. He wants to get out of the damned chopper, get out there on the ground and find her alive and well before the Kudu Noir get to her. He cannot think about that.
Packed in the back of the troop bay with twenty-two men, Col glances over at Alex. He looks tense and angry as he stares down at the ground trying to see any movement in the village. He can’t see any human figures at all, everything looks deserted.
Alex turns and leans into the cockpit between the two pilots and points down at the ground. ‘OK, let’s land at the end of the village in that first field.’
The chopper turns quickly and flies along the valley before going into a fast assault landing. They know there are enemy troops in the area and they cannot hang about. The pilot puts the nose up and flares the rotors, dust and mud blasting off the little field as they slide into the narrow valley. The rear wheels bang down hard on the ground and the troops run down the ramp, rifles at the ready. Alex is desperate to be out and jumps out of the side door a few feet to the ground and runs for the side of the field, Col following him.
The action saves their lives.
The pilot throws in full power and pulls hard on the cyclic and the heavy machine rises up fifty feet above the troops. Two RPG rockets streak out of the bush on the valley side and hit it, one exploding just behind the cockpit and killing the door gunner and one hitting the fuel tank near the rotor. Thousands of litres of high-explosive avtur ignite and explode in a fireball overhead spraying burning fuel into the trees. The main rotor spins away and the body of the aircraft drops like a stone, smashing into the ground. The aluminium airframe burns with an intense white light too bright to look at.
The tail boom with the rotor on it is blown backwards and lands on top of the last two men to exit the ramp who are down on their belt buckles in the defensive perimeter.
The explosion sounds like a huge clap of thunder that rolls up and down the valley. The men on the ground all look in horror at the mangled wreckage. They are now stuck in enemy territory.
Alex and Col both put their arms over their heads as the helicopter explodes over them, lying face down on the ground. The blast waves bang down on their backs.
Burning fuel and bits of metal scatter down around them and the main airframe lands nearby with a heavy thud that they feel through the ground on thei
r fronts.
Alex pulls up his head and looks at the flame and smoke around them. ‘Shit!’ He glances around trying to see who is alive. ‘Major Delacroix!’
‘Here!’
Jean-Baptiste’s hand goes up on the far side of the field.
‘Get the men into cover on your side of the valley. Signaller, on me!’
Alex dashes over and throws himself down in cover in some bushes at the side of the valley.
Jean-Baptiste, Col and Stein are bellowing and getting the shocked soldiers into cover. Two bodies can be seen sticking out from the collapsed wreckage of the tail boom; the force now numbers twenty-two men in total.
The Tac signaller runs over to Alex who is rapidly calculating what reinforcements they need. He gets through on the radio to Yamba’s signaller who is down at the flight line with him.
‘Loyola, this is Black Hal, we have lost our helicopter to ground fire. Request replacement with gunship and another platoon in separate aircraft be despatched immediately.’
Yamba is surrounded by the burning fires of hell and screaming wounded. He shouts into the receiver, ‘Black Hal, this is Loyola, we have been hit by MLRS artillery ambush, flight line has been wiped out. All helicopters have been destroyed.’
‘What!’
‘Repeat, all helicopters have been destroyed.’
‘Fuck!’
Yamba continues to give him more bad news. ‘Bronze Six reports he is being attacked by a mob.’
Alex’s mind goes blank for a moment – the scale of the disasters is catastrophic, his entire airmobile capability has just been destroyed and the global dignitary he swore to protect is now under threat. A minute ago he was in charge of the most powerful military force in the province that could handle any threat, now he is reduced to abject weakness in enemy territory.
He forces himself to think. They need more helicopters to get them out of this place and get the Americans out. Who the hell has got them?
‘Loyola, I want you to contact Bilal Fadoul and get one of his choppers up here now, get the other to the Americans. We are in the main village but it’s under fire. New extraction LZ is area of flat meadows half a mile away up a side valley to the west of village.’
Yamba doesn’t think he will have much chance with Bilal but he repeats the instructions and then gets on the satellite phone to the Lebanese.
Alex looks round the valley and tries to see where the enemy are. They’ve fired two RPGs but no other rounds. He can’t work out what is happening; maybe they are keeping out of the way, fearful of another gunship airstrike like the ones that wiped out their last attack on his troops.
He calls to Jean-Baptiste, ‘Let’s move forward into the village and search it!’
The platoon begins moving down the side of the valley staying in the cover of the trees and leapfrogging forward, one section covering another as they scramble from tree to tree.
As the commanding officer, Alex stays in the centre of the platoon with his signaller, his heart rate high and his vision adrenaline-sharp. He can’t hear any enemy movement, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else in the valley. They move on and then a hand signal is passed back to him from the point section and he hurries forward past the first few mud-walled huts.
He can see a dead mai-mai soldier lying in the doorway of one of the houses. He’s wearing a tee shirt and combat trousers; it looks like he was shot as he ran out of the doorway. Blood has leaked from his chest and congealed in the red dust around him, his rifle lies in front of him.
Sergeant Stein leads the point section forward and they fan out, staying low and darting from hut to hut as Alex moves forward behind them. As he crouches next to the door of a hut, he sees more evidence of a firefight – a scattering of spent rifle cartridges and he can smell the distinctive whiff of cordite. The gun battle is very recent.
The point man uses hand signals to say that he’s found something on the ground. Alex is impatient to find Sophie; he runs forwards, reaches the lead man and sees him pointing to an object in some open ground between the huts. Alex’s eyes latch onto it and immediately he wishes he had never seen it. A small red Hope Street rucksack lies on the ground, its contents scattered around it. Sophie always had one with her whenever she left base.
He stands up carefully in the shelter of the hut and looks at the ground around it. The earth is scuffed and torn with boot marks and there are signs of dragging leading out of the village the way they came in, back down the valley. He uses hand signals and moves the men back the way they came. This time he goes on point, his rifle held ready; he’s desperate to find her.
Jean-Baptiste moves up next to him and together they dart from tree to tree, rifle sights up and questing but still finding no targets and there is no sound, the valley is still. The tension is getting to Alex; his soul harbours a dread feeling. They scout along the side of the fields where the helicopter is still burning and then past it towards a thin line of trees that divides them from the football field.
Stein whispers hoarsely to his men, ‘Charlie Fireteam, secure the treeline,’ but Alex signals that he will go. The men take up positions, rifles pointing across the other side of the field and towards the trees.
Alex darts out of cover, expecting a burst of fire but none comes. He runs forward and butts his shoulder up against one of the line of trees across the valley. Still no sign of the enemy.
Jean-Baptiste scuttles up next to him, his rifle sweeping the trees around them. He nods and Alex moves on through the trees to the football field. He sees something at the far end and walks out of cover into the open.
Jean-Baptiste isn’t ready to cover him yet and calls sharply, ‘Wait!’
Alex ignores him and walks forward in full view of any enemy sniper. Jean-Baptiste takes up a position behind a tree and watches the figure as it walks and now stumbles forward. It drops its rifle on the ground, reaches the halfway line and sinks to its knees.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Joseph is near the front of the mob charging towards the American camp. Simon is next to him and they run as fast as they can, pushing their way through the men around them.
Major Reilly sees the mob racing at him, a line of angry men coming over the sea of green grass. As they run some make throat-slitting gestures at him and wave machetes. He stands front centre with his five soldiers and thinks, ‘How are we going to get out of this alive?’
He knows they only have limited ammunition – they were supposed to be protecting an individual against an assassination attempt, not fighting a war. He scans the crowd through the razor wire for weapons. Some machetes are held aloft but he can’t see any rifles.
‘OK, that’s far enough, fire five rounds over their heads.’
The five soldiers advance towards the thin fence and bring their rifles to their shoulders.
A fusillade of shots cracks out slowly and deliberately over the heads of the crowd. The men at the front see the shots fired over their heads and drop down into the grass fifty yards from the fence. The men behind them also duck down but cannot see the shots being fired into the air; they only see men dropping to the ground in front of them.
‘They’re killing us!’
The crowd stops and crouches down in the high grass, shouting ‘Murderers!’ ‘Foreigners out!’ ‘Kivuuuuu!’
The men at the front stand up quickly and throw beer bottles at the Americans. A hail of them flies forward and the soldiers are forced to dodge and run for cover. Reilly gets hit by a half-full bottle of beer on the head and it gashes his brow and he stumbles and falls.
‘Shit! Reilly’s down!’
One of the ten men up on the flat roofs of the huts sees him fall and scans over his rifle sights for the next man to stand up in the grass and hurl a missile.
Two shots crack out and the man spins backwards.
Reilly pushes himself back up and starts shouting, ‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’ but it’s too late.
Kudu Noir and former government troops have m
ingled with the crowd and crawl forward through the grass with their AK-47s. One soldier sights on the Americans on the roof and fires off a long burst. It chatters high and the bullets crack over their heads. The Americans quickly spot the sparkle of muzzle flash in the long grass and blast rounds back at him.
A firefight breaks out and Reilly abandons his attempt to cease fire. ‘Everybody on the roofs!’
He runs round to the back of a hut where someone has put a white plastic chair up against it. He clambers up on it and pulls himself up onto the roof. Crouching low, he sticks his head up between bursts of fire. He can look down and see the sprinkling of heads in the grass, men crabbing around, keeping low and fanning out around the compound, surrounding him.
‘All round defence! Spread out!’
Men run and jump across the roofs of huts to keep the threat back from all sides of the perimeter.
‘Conserve ammunition! Only fire on targets with weapons!’
Rukuba is lying in his hammock with his arms folded tightly across his chest and a glowering expression on his face.
Zacheus and a group of government ministers stand at a distance from him, not daring to approach when he is in such a fury. Gabriel runs out of the farmhouse, pushes past the group and rushes up to the President; he is too anxious to be afraid.
He stands over Rukuba, his eyes wild and his big jaw jutting awkwardly. He flings his hands out in desperation. ‘Mr President, they are firing at the Americans!’
He gestures over towards the encampment, half a mile away, from where the popping sound of gunfire can be faintly heard.
Rukuba merely turns a baleful gaze up at him and says in a quiet voice, ‘She must accept responsibility for her actions. If my men want to express their patriotic anger, I will not stop them.’
Gabriel throws himself on his knees; the Unit 17 men behind him dart forward anxiously. ‘But the Americans will kill us!’ he wails and he grabs the President’s robes. Two Unit 17 men step up, get hold of his arms and drag him back onto his feet.